U.s. Senate Race Gets A Little Racier

TALLAHASSEE -- Needing pizzazz, Florida's lukewarm U.S. Senate race is about to draw national celebrity attention.

Enter Gennifer Flowers, the publicity-catching woman who claimed to have had a 12-year affair with former President Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas.

Republican Senate candidate Larry Klayman, the founder of Judicial Watch who has nearly made a career out of suing the Clintons, will accompany Flowers, his former client, at three fund-raisers in South Florida this month.

A "boat tour" in Miami and two events in West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale are scheduled for July 29 and 30. Klayman's campaign aides are predicting she'll net $200,000 or more for their campaign.

"We think she'll be a big draw," said David E. Johnson, Klayman's spokesman. "She's become a born-again Christian, and Larry has a strong appeal to the Christian conservatives. But more importantly, people know Larry Klayman as someone who sued the Clintons, and [her appearances] capitalizes on what he did in his fight against the Clintons."

With Klayman acting as her attorney in 2003, Flowers sued Hillary Rodham Clinton, George Stephanopoulos, James Carville and other Clinton associates, claiming that they orchestrated a campaign to discredit her. The lawsuit was dismissed by a federal judge earlier this year.

Flowers arrived on the political scene during Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, alleging she had an affair with him beginning in 1980. She also claimed that in 1977 he gave her $200 for an abortion. When Clinton denied the allegations, she held a news conference at which she played tape recordings she claimed were of secretly recorded intimate phone calls with Clinton.

Johnson said Flowers, who owns a nightclub in New Orleans, has remained a friend to Klayman and has pledged to help his campaign, possibly even appearing in radio or television commercials on his behalf.

Skeptics acknowledge that a little more Clinton-bashing can't hurt the Klayman campaign but warn that a Gennifer Flowers endorsement could backfire.

"I'm not so sure Christian voters will respond to Gennifer Flowers given her past," said Wayne Garcia, a spokesman for rival Republican Senate candidate Johnnie Byrd.